Heart Of Atlantis

the Jack she knew—
human
Jack—would never have put up with her comment. The fact that tiger Jack didn’t seem to like it either gave her another moment of hope.
    Archelaus appeared in the doorway and nodded to her. “My lady, you want your privacy, I know, but our guest wishes to speak with the two of you.”
    Quinn had to think for a second or two before she remembered what guest he was talking about. By then, Alaric had caught her arm in a firm grasp, as if to prevent her from moving. She pointedly looked down at his hand and then up at him.
    “No. I don’t trust her,” he commanded.
    “Of course you’re not talking to me, are you? You would know better than to try to give me orders, Your Royal Priestliness, wouldn’t you?” she asked in a voice so sweet it made Alaric blink.
    “You—”
    She cut him off. “Stop it. As far as I know, I’m still the leader of the North American rebel alliance, even after this hiatus. I’m not a helpless woman who needs the big, strong Atlantean to tell her what to do. Let’s go see this woman.”
    “But—”
    “The sooner we see her, the sooner we can find out who she really is,” Quinn explained, in her most reasonable tone. She figured reasonableness was better than pulling out her Glock and shooting him in the foot. He’d just heal himself, anyway, so it wasn’t like he’d learn a lesson in Not Being Bossy.
    She yanked her arm out of his grasp and strode across the chamber toward Archelaus, surprised to find the older man grinning like a delighted child.
    “Oh, Alaric, you are in so much trouble, aren’t you?” Archelaus said, shaking his head.
    Alaric snarled something in a language that might have been ancient Atlantean, but whatever he’d said, it only made Archelaus laugh out loud. “Good luck with that, youngling.”
    Quinn, who knew Alaric was at least five hundred years past being called a youngling, shot a suspicious look at Archelaus but decided she was too tired to care about the relative ages of Atlantean warriors. “Just take us to her. Jack, are you coming?”
    Jack slouched down off the bed and padded after her as she followed Archelaus down the stone corridor toward a kind of courtyard. The area was enclosed by the walls of the cave, but high up on one side an opening allowed sunshine to stream into the space. The surprise at first had been the garden flourishing in the heart of a cavern, filled with fantastical flowers that she’d never seen before. She noticed a trace of a smile cross Alaric’s face and wondered at the source. She realized they’d never both been in the garden at the same time before.
    She raised an eyebrow. “You like flowers?”
    “It’s a miniature replica of the main palace courtyard in Atlantis, even to the tiny fountain burbling in the corner,” he said.
    Archelaus nodded. “Yes. A bit of home I couldn’t resist bringing with me. My friends are always asking for cuttings and seedlings, so I fear I have introduced Atlantean life to the surface before Conlan was quite ready.”
    “I doubt the high prince is concerned about this kind of population,” Alaric said dryly.
    Quinn tilted her head and stared up at the jagged edges of the window, which was actually not much more than a cleft torn in the ground above. “Had any hikers fallen in recently?”
    Archelaus smiled. “As you know, there is a powerful repellent spell in the area above. I may not have mentioned this before, but no hiker has come near the spot since the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, came on a pilgrimage to the sacred Fuji-san in 1867.”
    “The mountain is sacred to the Japanese?”
    The Atlantean elder nodded. “Yes. Certainly more at that time than now, as so many of our gods and sacred places have lost their meaning in this modern age.”
    “But not to you,” she pointed out, slanting a long look at Alaric. “Your god, Poseidon, is as real to you today as he ever was.”
    Jack, who was prowling around the edges of the room, lifted his shaggy head and aimed his amber gaze at Alaric, growling softly.
    Alaric ignored the tiger. He crossed his arms on his chest and stared right back at Quinn. “As real, and even more demanding. Yet not all of us will continue to dance to his tune forever.”
    “You are his sworn high priest, my son,” Archelaus said, his face troubled. “What you speak is worse than blasphemy; it is akin to breaking an oath.”
    Alaric turned away from the man, as if dismissing the topic, and pointed at